The drive to make a difference in people’s lives that led Wendy Greuel to a career in politics continues to motivate her now that she is out of office. Since her defeat in the 2013 mayoral race, she has divided her time between government and educational activities, including her role as executive in residence at the Nazarian School of Business and Economics at California State University – Northridge. A San Fernando Valley native, Greuel, who lives in Encino, graduated from UCLA and went to work in the administration of then-Mayor Tom Bradley for 10 years. She followed that with a stint in the Clinton Administration and later handled government and community affairs for DreamWorks SKG, the production company started by Steven Spielberg. In 2002, she was elected to the L.A. City Council from a district representing parts of the east Valley, a position she held for two terms. She later became city controller and ran for mayor but lost to Eric Garcetti. Greuel met with the Business Journal at her CSUN office to discuss the importance of the university, whether the Valley receives its fair share of money from the city and what kind of business she would start. Question: What have you been doing since leaving public office? Answer: A variety of things. One of my activities has been helping Discovery Cube Los Angeles open in the San Fernando Valley. That was a facility that had sat vacant for years. In addition, I serve as the chair of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. One of the exciting and relatively new activities is coming to Cal State Northridge and serving as executive in residence and strategic advisor for the campus. The Nazarian College of Business and Economics is really a gem here. Wendy Greuel Title: Executive in residence, California State University – Northridge Born: Los Angeles, 1961 Education: B.S. in political science, UCLA Influential Person: Late Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles Career Turning Point: Running for public office in 2002 Personal: Married, with one son, lives in Encino Hobbies: Biking with family What is an executive in residence? It is a position that says we want everyone to know how great the university is and to support it, whether financially or participate on campus. Cal State Northridge is a campus that is one the best in the country. Some of the statistics you see include it as the third most diverse university in the country. Our accounting program is number three in the nation and number one in the state. Eighty-five percent of our students are employed in the accounting profession right after graduation. Pretty impressive. How were you recruited for this job? David Nazarian is a graduate and really stepped forward and contributed a few years ago $10 million to help this university and the business school in what they wanted to accomplish – namely, to ensure that the students who come to this campus get the education they need in business and economics. He asked if I would consider being a part of what they were trying to achieve at Cal State Northridge. As someone who grew up in the Valley, I believe this was my opportunity to give back and be part of this college that is trying to educate the leaders of tomorrow, particularly for the business community. What do you like best about the position? There is nothing better than being around students. We are helping them with a speaker’s program. Our inaugural speaker is going to be (former Housing and Urban Development secretary) Henry Cisneros. I worked for him during the Clinton Administration. I was here during the (1994) Northridge earthquake and Henry spent a lot of time here at the campus while the recovery occurred. Where do you see the Valley economy going? I still believe that as someone who has had a family business in the Valley, this is the place to be. The growth of the businesses you see, whether it is manufacturing, family business, all the excitement in a community. I believe the Valley continues to be where things are happening in entertainment, in manufacturing, in many places. Does the Valley get its fair share of money from the city? That is something that when I ran in 2001, I talked about and throughout my career said we need to do more. I still believe the Valley is not seen as the place it should be. You can see two of my activities post-election (in 2013) have been focused on the San Fernando Valley. This is a place where I think the future can be developed. Los Angeles has a reputation as being unfriendly to business. How does the City Council perceive that? I remember when my father was still alive – unfortunately he did not live to see me get elected – he used to say to me when I worked for Mayor Bradley, ‘You need to do something about business taxes in L.A.’ One of my biggest accomplishments on the City Council was the business tax reform, which reduced business taxes overall and simplified the system. I think there is more work to be done. Businesses are thriving in Los Angeles but I still hear those complaints that it takes too long to get through the process, that surrounding cities are more business friendly. I believe here at the business school we can help further those conversations. How? The university is very involved in the (Valley) Economic Alliance, VICA, BizFed, all those organizations that are trying to promote the San Fernando Valley. Part of my job is bringing people to this university and exposing them to what is happening here. The Valley is a place where people can roll up their sleeves and be entrepreneurial, and we see that in many places. What do you think of the job that Eric Garcetti is doing as mayor? He is doing a good job. I jokingly said to him when he put me on the Homeless commission was that punishment because it is one of the toughest issues. I think Eric has focused on getting back to basics. How have you engaged the business community in the homeless issue? I think for Los Angeles what has been great is (ballot initiatives) Measure H and Measure HHH, two very important things that were passed. You had the (Los Angeles Area) Chamber of Commerce out there supporting it 100 percent. You had United Way that has taken a huge role in dealing with the issue of homelessness. Everyone understands that this isn’t just someone else’s problem, this is all of our problem. The business community has been side by side in working with whether it was with Mayor Garcetti or (Los Angeles County) Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. Now it is rolling up your sleeves and making sure that housing is built and the services are provided. If you were to start a business today, what would it be? It would be fun but difficult to open a restaurant. It is place where you engage with people. For me, you have those favorite places where you go to for a meal where you feel it is family. To create that environment, I think, would be interesting. The other would be to help create an area where you were able to have technology companies feed with each other. A business opportunity where young people or other businesses are using technology to communicate and able to create their new businesses. What lessons did you learn from the family business that are still relevant today? What I learned from my grandfather, my father and my mother was that there was nothing like the personal interaction with the people you deal with. No matter how big your company or how small your company, customer service is number one. The other part of it is to be accessible, being able to know you were going to work 24/7. That set me up going into politics as well. My parents taught me those really important values, which are if you work hard, if you have a good product and if you ensure you have great customer service you are going to be successful. Why did you go into politics? I met Tom Bradley when I was in high school and college. I interned for him and during that time I learned that I could wake up every day and make a difference in someone’s life by being part of government. At that time whether it was on the homeless issue, on education, on AIDS, on immigration issues – all of those things were important. I believed that public service was a noble cause. Would you consider going back to public life? The right thing came along at the right time, right place, and I believe I had the opportunity to serve as a public official for 12 years. It went by really fast. But I am able to give back in what I am doing now, whether it is on the (homeless) commission or active in the Discovery Cube. We saw over 250,000 people in the first year come into that facility. The second year has been equally successful in providing for something for kids. Has the city become more liberal since you left politics? You have more liberal members on the City Council, but I don’t know if I’d say it’s more liberal. I think there are some surprises with people who have been more business-friendly than individuals thought. Mitch O’Farrell has been a very business-friendly council member and people thought he was going to be more to the left side of that. What I have seen is the city has brought business and labor together more than I have seen in the past, like on homeless issues. They’ve come together on transportation issues. Some may say the raising of the minimum wage was a more liberal part of it. I also think everyone understood that raising the minimum wage actually raises all boats and we have not seen businesses desperately leave the city. What was your biggest challenge as controller? The biggest challenge was to get people to take action on the items we put forward. There were many audits that I believed would change how things were done, but unfortunately they didn’t necessarily always get passed in the way that I would want. And I didn’t have enough staff. Out of the staff I had there I had only 13 auditors. That does not allow you to do the in-depth auditing that would be useful in ensuring that departments were able to understand when they were doing things incorrectly. What is your advice for business owners in dealing with public officials? Business owners have a lot of input into how this city should be run. If you don’t have jobs in the city, you are not able to do the things you want to do. I would say to business owners make sure your voices are heard, that you don’t expect someone else to be your advocate, that you continue to look for resources to help your businesses grow and look to the communities that are here in the Valley and these educational institutions that are going to provide you with those leaders of the future. What about advice for business owners looking to hire CSUN graduates? They are smart, they are dedicated, they are hard working. Many of the students work a job, two jobs and come to campus to get their degrees. I think you will find that these are students who are willing to roll up their sleeves to be successful. Who has been the most influential person in your life? Tom Bradley. He taught me what it meant to be in public service and, unbeknownst to me, taught me what it meant to be an elected official. The values, which are not different from what my parents taught me in business, which is it is about customer service, it is about the little things that matter and about working hard every single day to make a difference. What was your career turning point? I had different career turning points. When I went to work for Tom Bradley, I thought I’d work there for a couple of years and it ended up being 10 years. Then going to Washington and then DreamWorks movie studios. That was probably an interesting turning point for me to go into the entertainment industry. But I guess I would say an unusual turning point was to decide to run for office. Why? It was not something I planned on. It was an opportunity when Joel Wachs decided to retire early and they were going to have a special election. That turning point was where could I make the biggest difference. I could add to the City Council being more business-friendly, I could add to the issues that impact the San Fernando Valley. That was the most unique turn – to take a leap of faith and put myself out there. We have seen that is hard for many women. We see that we have only one woman on the City Council now. When I was on we had five ultimately. What are your interests outside your professional life? I am a serial board member. I serve on the L.A. Kings business advisory board, which has been a lot of fun. I serve on Emerge California, which is helping women get elected. But for fun, I have a 13-year old, so we like to go biking. That is a big part of what we do in our family. There is not a lot of time for anything else. I watch my son play soccer and other sports and I enjoy that.
Voice of the Valley
